Mr. Trump’s own response to the ruling is illustrative here. His statement teased a forthcoming national salvation, presumably through his own re-election, but offered no vision for a post-Roe agenda. Perhaps that’s because Mr. Trump, always an unconvincing pro-lifer, appears unsure of what to make of the world he has wrought. Speaking Friday on Fox News, he blithely posited that “in the end, this is something that will work out for everybody.” Reports in The Times and Rolling Stone, citing unnamed sources close to the former president, indicate that his first reaction to the Dobbs decision was to worry about how it would affect his standing with suburban women.

Last is that language of “legacy” itself, which may mean some Republicans are already realizing the advantages of leaving the Trump times behind. Andrew Giuliani was not alone in his use of that word in reactions to the Dobbs news Friday. “We have Trump to thank for this,” tweeted commentator Allie Beth Stuckey. “Ain’t a mean tweet in the world that can overshadow what is now the greatest presidential legacy in history.” And while plenty of responses took the Dobbs news as proof of political life, others had something of a retrospective tone or even gave a grateful goodbye: “Thank you, Donald Trump. You had the courage to run in 2016. You got 3 SCOTUS picks. Roe is gone,” said Ned Ryun, C.E.O. of the right-wing activist group American Majority. A Washington Post columnist, Marc Thiessen, while lauding Mr. Trump as “our greatest pro-life president,” worth four years of chaos and unspecified “behavior after the 2020 election,” hoped outright that he “does not run again in 2024.”